The councillor expressed concerns about the financial sustainability of the City of Brisbane Investment Corporation (CBIC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Brisbane City Council (BCC).
The councillor requested we undertake further investigations into the investment structure and investment performance of CBIC, its relationship to Council and the use of ratepayer funds to pay rent to CBIC.
We responded to the councillor on 15 December 2023.
We advised the councillor that we had assessed the information he provided and that we consider issues related to financial sustainability as part of forming our audit opinion on the annual financial audit of CBIC.
Through our annual audits we will continue to assess the financial sustainability of CBIC, including assessing its ability to continue as a going concern. Should our audit identify any issues relating to CBIC’s ability to continue as a going concern, these will be reflected in the independent auditor’s report we issue on CBIC’s financial statements. To date, we have not identified any going concern issues.
We also noted that as CBIC is a wholly controlled entity of BCC, any financial transactions between the two entities are eliminated in preparing consolidated financial statements for the BCC group.
While we assess governance arrangements and internal controls over investment decisions made by CBIC and BCC, we do not comment on the merits of these investment decisions. This is consistent with our mandate under the Auditor-General Act 2009.